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Alexander H. Cohen, who had produced Dietrich's successful Broadway runs of her one-woman show in 1967 and 1968, suggested a television version of her show.

Dietrich would receive a fee of $250,000 for her participation in the project. It was said at the time that this was the highest one-shot fee ever paid to a performer to appear on television. After two airings (one in the UK and one in the US), the copyright on the show would revert to Dietrich.

Dietrich—wary of television as a medium—insisted that the show be filmed in a legitimate theatre in Europe, to best capture her act and audience reaction thereto. The New London Theatre in London was chosen as location for filming, although the theatre would still be under construction at the time of filming. (The theatre would only officially open the following year.)

Lighting designer Joe Davis was brought in to recreate Dietrich's stage lighting and designerRouben Ter-Arutunian designed a set featuring scrims and incorporating a Dietrich sketch by René Bouche. Dietrich's costumes were by Jean Louis, and Stan Freeman conducted the orchestra, using orchestrations of the Dietrich repertoire by Burt Bacharach.

Taping took place on November 23 and November 24, 1972. Dietrich gave two complete shows to non-paying, invitee-only audiences. Shots of Dietrich interacting with the audience were also taped at the end of the second concert. She also shot retakes of "Lili Marlene" and "Falling in Love Again (Can't Help It)" (the latter both in English and German) sans audience against a black velour backdrop to facilitate a post-production split-screen montage of her singing beside old black and white stills from the 1930s and 1940s. The best selections from the various tapings would be combined to form the final, one-hour-long special.

Originally titled I Wish You Love, the show premiered in the UK on the BBC on January 1, 1973 and in the USA on January 13, 1973 on CBS Television (sponsored by Kraft Foods). The original UK runtime was 54 minutes, but the show was trimmed down to 50 minutes to meet US network demands.

To promote the show, Dietrich had a photo sitting with Milton Greene, which produced a famous portrait of her, appearing to wear nothing but her famous swansdown coat.

CBS organised a press conference with Dietrich at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel and an exclusive interview with Rex Reed to publicize the US network showing. At the conference and in her interview with Reed, Dietrich - to the surprise of her producers and the network - slammed the show, claiming it wasn't on par with her live shows, that rehearsal time was severely limited and that the show was technically inept.

Despite her statements, the show garnered good (if not spectacular) ratings and generally positive reviews from the press.

As a result of her interviews, she was sued by producer Alexander H. Cohen - successfully in the UK, but unsuccessfully in the US.

After its initial US and UK broadcasts, varying edits of the show were broadcast around the world, including Australia, Germany, France, Spain and South Africa.

For its home video release in the 1980s, the show was retitled An Evening with Marlene Dietrich (its current title).

A DVD version released by EMI in 2003 included five previously unreleased songs. The Dietrich estate sued EMI-Toshiba for including these unlicensed selections without their permission.

Previously unseen alternate takes of "Lola" and "You're the Cream in My Coffee" were included as bonus features on the Kino DVD release ofThe Blue Angel. This material comes from the Marlene Dietrich Collection Berlin, which holds all unissued material related to the television special as part of its collection.

The 66-minute cut of the film is now available on DVD and VHS from the Harry Smith Archives. It is sometimes screened at one-time cinema events, often with some kind of live music instead of the film's soundtrack (which consists solely of sound effects). A recent Ann Arbor Film Festival revival featured a score by hip-hop producer Flying Lotus.

This film is screened at John Zorn's Essential Cinema concerts, where a group of musicians perform behind the film. In the liner notes to Naked City's "Heretic" album it says "This record is dedicated to Harry Smith. Mystical Animator, Pioneer Ethnomusicologist, Hermetic Scholar, Creator of Heaven + Earth Magic, one of the greatest films of all time."

Re-edited several times between 1957 and 1962. Sixteen millimeter, black & white, mono, initially six hours, later versions of two hours and 67 min. Extended version of Smith's No. 8. Cutout animation culled from 19th-century catalogs meant to be shown using custom-made projectors fit out with color filters (gels, wheels, etc.) and masking hand-painted glass slides to alter the projected image. Jonas Mekas gave the film—which is often regarded as Smith's major work—its title in 1964–65.

Hosono has also released many solo albums covering a variety of styles, including film soundtracks and a variety of electronic ambient albums. As well as recording his own music, Hosono has done considerable production work for other artists such as Miharu Koshi, Sheena and the Roketts,Sandii and the Sunsetz, Chisato Moritaka and Seiko Matsuda.

In 1977, Hosono invited Ryuichi Sakamoto and Yukihiro Takahashi to work on his exotica-flavoured album Paraiso, which included electronic music produced using the Yamaha CS-80polyphonic synthesizer and ARP Odyssey synthesizer. The band was named "Harry Hosono and the Yellow Magic Band" and, having been recorded in late 1977, Paraiso was released in early 1978.[5] The three worked together again for the 1978 electronic album Pacific, which included an early version of the song "Cosmic Surfin".[6]

In 1978, he released an innovative electronic soundtrack for a fictionalBollywood film Cochin Moon, together with artist Tadanori Yokoo and future YMO band members Ryuichi Sakamoto and Hideki Matsutake. Inspired by a trip to India and "the exotic, luxurious, and seemingly wonder-filled scenarios played out in Indian cinemas," it was an experimental "electro-exotica" album fusing exotic Indian music (reminiscent of Ravi Shankar and Bollywood music) with electronic music, including an early "synthraga" song entitled "Hum Ghar Sajan" (from a Guru Granth Sahibphrase).[7] The same year, he contributed to Sakamoto's song "1000 Knives" for his solo album, The Thousand Knives of Ryuichi Sakamoto, which experimented with fusing electronic music with traditional Japanese music in early 1978.[8]

He was one of the first producers to recognize the appeal of video game sounds and music. YMO's self-titled debut in 1978 contained substantial video game sounds and after YMO disbanded an early project was an album simply titled Video Game Music containing mixed and edited Namcoarcade game music and sounds. Video Game Music was released in 1984 as an early example of a chiptune record[9] and the first video game music album.[10] That same year, he also produced the theme song for Hayao Miyazaki's popular anime film Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, "Kaze no Tani no Naushika", with vocals by actress-singer Narumi Yasuda.[11] In the late 80s and early 90s, the influence of world music on his music deepened, and he worked with international singers and musicians such as Amina Annabi.

He has produced a number of short term band projects as a band member. His first post-YMO band was Friends of Earth. As with most of his projects he combines musical styles he's interested in. F.O.E. seemed to be a combination of Funk and Techno and included a collaboration withJames Brown and Maceo Parker for a remake of the song "Sex Machine". Another notable band project was 1995's Love, Peace & Trance. Members were Mimori Yusa ("Love"), Miyako Koda ("Peace"), Haruomi Hosono ("&") and Mishio Ogawa ("Trance").

In the 1990s he started the Daisyworld label to release a wide range of experimental artists from Japan and the rest of the world. Hosono collaborated on many of the releases, such as World Standard, a trip into Americana; HAT, a supergroup (the acronym stands for Hosono, Atom Heart, Tetsu Inoue),and "Quiet Logic", by Mixmaster Morris and Jonah Sharp. The Orb also paid tribute with a series of remixes including the notorious "Hope You Choke on Your Whalemeat".

In the spring of 2007, his fellow YMO members and other artist paid tribute to Haruomi with a 2-disc album titled "Tribute to Haruomi". That same year, the animated film Appleseed Ex Machina was released featuring a soundtrack performed and supervised by Hosono.

In September 2010 he performed at the De La Fantasia festival and played songs from his upcoming album.

In February 2011 it was announced that his new album, entitled "HoSoNoVa" was to be released on April 20. He also performed a special concert to celebrate its release.

Guests are invited onto the show to be interviewed while smoking marijuana alongside Doug. They are asked questions on recent 'Pot Topics' and then quizzed with a 'Pot Quiz Hop Shot' segment. Guests are also asked about the most famous person they've ever smoked with. Toward the end of the show, magician Gabe performs a magic trick for the guest, who by this point is usually very high.[1]